After graduating from Scripps College in California and the Publishing Procedures Course at Radcliffe, Eliot moved to New York City, where she worked at several publishing houses, including Simon & Schuster and Doubleday, and at Time Inc.

She later moved to Massachusetts with her husband and two children to become public relations director and humanities teacher at the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School and later at the Great Barrington Waldorf High School. Courses she has taught include: History Through Language, The Novel – Graham Greene, The Odyssey, Parzival, Romance Literature, Shakespeare, World Religions, and a wide variety of creative writing courses. She has also held adult seminars and workshops for aspiring and published writers on various aspects of being a writer, including technique, creativity, publishing, marketing and promotion.

A world traveler, she lived for several years in Greece, Italy, Spain and England. She spent a year with her family on a freighter traveling from Greece to Japan. Her travels have taken her to sacred sites around the world, including the caves of Ajanta and Ellora in India, Delphi in Greece, the great pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge and other sacred stone circles in the West Country of England, and many more places. She has even traveled north of the Arctic Circle on an expedition through Scandinavia, and she spent several months in Japan, visiting Zen gardens and temples.

Eliot’s talent and interests come naturally: She is the heir of a long line of distinguished writers and educators. She is the daughter of Alexander Eliot, former Art Editor of Time Magazine and the writer Jane Winslow Eliot. Her great-great-grandfather, Charles W. Eliot, was president of Harvard for fifty years and revamped the American college Liberal Arts curriculum. He was also famous for establishing the “five-foot shelf,” a still-utilized collection of essential books. Her great-great grandmother, Ada Davenport Kendall was a leading journalist who spent several months in prison for protesting in support of women’s suffrage. Another ancestor, John Eliot, translated the Bible into Algonquin in the seventeenth century. Her favorite fiction writer of all time is her grandmother, Ethel Cook Eliot, who wrote children’s books (The House Above the Trees, The Wind Boy), teenage mysteries, and adult novels (Ariel Dances, Green Doors).

Eliot is a member of Romance Writers of America, PEN, and the Authors Guild, among other organizations. She taught English and worked as the Community Relations Director for the Honolulu Waldorf School in Hawai’i from 2005 to 2007. Currently she is writing and teaching in Western Massachusetts.

BOOKS:

A Perfect Gem (Telemachus Press, March 2011)

“Bad things happen to other people. Not to us.” This is Crista’s husband’s mantra – something he says often, right up to the day his car goes off the cliff, killing him. Crista doesn’t think her life can get any worse. But it can.

Heaven Falls (Telemachus Press, March 2010)
From a reader in Ireland: “Just finished reading Heaven Falls by Winslow Eliot – a brilliant book, couldn’t put it down … suspense, intrigue, fast pace, what more could you want! The little stories and facts about the essential oils were fab too, although I was so involved in the story that at times I didn’t read them till I’d finished the whole book.” Learn more at Heaven Falls Spa.

The Bright Face of Danger (originally published by St. Martin’s Press 1993; reissued by Telemachus Press 2010). “Don’t start this one late at night or you’ll never get any sleep…” wrote a reviewer for Rendezvous. It’s recently been reissued in France as L’Innocence du Mal.

Illustrated Atlas of Native American History (Saraband 1999) Ed. Samuel W. Crompton. This beautiful coffee-table book has lots of maps, primary source material, and detail. Eliot’s contribution: “Accommodation, Exchange, and Warfare 1600 – 1700.”

Written under pen name Ellie Winslow:

The Wine-Dark Sea (Signet/NAL 1983)

Painted Secrets (Signet/NAL 1984)

Red Sky At Night (Signet/NAL 1985)

A Distant Light (Signet/NAL 1986)

Roman Candles (Signet/NAL 1987)

In the tradition of Sydney Sheldon, Nora Roberts, and Daphne Du Maurier, Winslow Eliot’s novels weave suspense with romantic tenderness.